Friday, January 16, 2015

THE PUBLIC HAS ALREADY VOTED WITH THEIR WALLETS!

Although I truly appreciate the critics picking Birdman as the best movie picture of the year
and winners in all the other categories, but in the ONLY category that really
counts – MONEY MADE – it appears the American and International movie going public had already made their decisions.When it comes to picking
movies, I normally "trust the mob" so here is how the movie going and
paying public ranked this year’s movies as of 19 April 2015.Worldwide Rank, Movie, Box Office Receipts (Worldwide & Domestic)

Notice NONE of the eight
nominated movies is the top money maker of the past year although the Top Earning nominee,
American Sniper, was #1 domestically and #13 internationally and has made over $541 Million Worldwide.

Although it is obvious that The Transformers: Age of Extinction with over $1 Billion Worldwide and $245.4 Domestic should be this year's Oscar winner, the winner had to come from the
nominees selected by their Hollywood elite
peers so here is how “the Domestic mob” ranked the nominees according to how they spent their money:

American Sniper -- $347.8M
Domestic - $541.2M Worldwide

The Imitation Game -- $91.0M
Domestic - $218.9M Worldwide

GrandBudapest Hotel -- $59.1M
Domestic - $174.6M Worldwide

Selma
-- $52.1M Domestic - $52.1 Worldwide

Birdman -- $42.3M
Domestic - $101.9M Worldwide

The Theory of
Everything -- $35.9M Domestic (#86) - $121.2M Worldwide

Boyhood -- $25.4M
Domestic - $44.5M Worldwide

Whiplash -- $13.1M
Domestic - $14.0M Worldwide

No contest ….and the WINNER is, bank
statement Please (drum roll), the hands down winner by a country mile is
(sorry Michael Moore, Seth Rogen and Birdman):American
Sniper!

Until next year, here’s the Old Colonel wishing you an
enjoyable night at the movies!

Friday, January 2, 2015

Each New
Years Day I anxiously await the Washington Post article exposing the homicide
stats for the District of Columbia, our
Nation’s Capital, and the surrounding suburbs so I can confirm how luck I am to
live in Virginia
where I have the freedom to own a gun for self-protection. From the stats it is very obvious that homicidal
maniacs would much rather commit their crimes in jurisdictions like DC and
Maryland that not only don’t have the death penalty but where they have little
chance of being confronted by a law abiding citizen who just might have a gun
of their own!This year’s
WaPo article: Homicides remain steady
in District, Prince George’s ( Link at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/homicides-remain-steady-in-district-prince-georges/2014/12/31/cccb5428-8606-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
) showed that a DC resident, where firearms are virtually impossible to own, was 16.32
times more likely to be a homicide victim then one of us Gun Tottin Virginians living in the adjacent DC suburbs of Alexandria City and, Arlington & Fairfax Countieswhere gun ownership is almost unrestricted. Even a Marylander living in the adjacent DC suburbs of Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties, with increasingly
strict gun laws under former Gov O’Malley, was 4.1 times less likely to be a
homicide victim than a DC resident; much better than DC
but a Marylander was still almost 4 times more likely to be a homicide victim than one of us
Virginia Gun Totters! Those stats have gotten much worse so far this
year according to the WaPo website that tracks DC area homicides. DC is on track for a record breaking year with 106 homicides so far and as of 5 September 15, a DC resident is now almost 31
times more likely to he a homicide victim than a suburban Virginian while a DC resident
is now 5.6 times more likely than a suburban Marylander.
A Marylander is now over 5.5 times more likely to be a homicide victim than
a Virginians.

Like in past years, the WaPo curiously makes no attempt to explain the
disparity in rates among the various jurisdictions but even a cursory analysis
of the stats might reveal a motive for why the Liberal WaPo does no analysis --
could it be because it would clearly demonstrate the dramatically inverse
relationship between homicide rates and restrictions on gun ownership.
For you doubters who might want to run the figures for themselves, here is the
detailed math for the 2014 numbers using the latest population estimates from Census
Bureau and the Stats in the article:
DC population = 646,449
2014 Homicides = 105
2014 Homicide Rate = 16.268 / 100,000 people.Maryland
DC-suburbs of Montgomery & Prince George’s
Counties
Population = 1,906,758 (Montgomery
= 1,016,677; PG = 890,081)
2014 Homicides = 76
2014 Homicide Rate = 3.986 / 100,000.

Comparison of DC to VA suburbs = 16.268/.997
= A DC resident is 16.32 times more likely to be a victim than a Virginian

Comparison of DC to MD suburbs = 16.268/3.986
= A DC Resident is 4.08 times more likely to be a victim than a Marylander

Comparison of MD surburbs to VA suburbs = 3.986/.997
= A Marylander is 3.998 times more likely to be a victim than a Virginian

As of 22 Aug DC has experienced 101 homicides while the Virginia adjacent suburbs have had 8 and the Maryland adjacent suburbs 49. Plug those numbers into the above equations to get the 2015 stats to date.

Now I’m not opposed to registration and some reasonable limits on ownership
such as terrorists, ex-cons and the mentally unstable but there should be no
restrictions on ownership by average citizens – anywhere in the US. There is a
“God-given” right of self protection, especially in one’s own home, and a gun
is the only way to exercise that right. If you don’t believe me, just ask any Bostonian who was directed to “shelter
in place” during the Marathon Bomber manhunt or upstate New
York resident when Police were hunting the murders who escaped
from their Clinton
“maximum security prison” how they feel about owning a gun now!. One has to go no further than right here in our own
DC-area backyard to clearly demonstrate that contrary to liberal rhetoric, it
is an “inconvenient truth” that guns actually do make us safer. Case in
point, Virginia
has by far the laxest gun laws and the least gun violence of any of the
surrounding jurisdictions. Could it be
criminals are not so anxious to attack law-abiding citizens if they might be
"packing heat?"I would add that for those of you that are sincerely worried about the safety
of children in homes with guns, I would suggest that your energies would be far
more productive in saving children’s lives if you were to crusade against home
swimming pools. In any given year in
this country there is one child drowning death for every 11,000 residential
swimming pools or 550 children under the age of 10 drown every year in our 6
million pools. Meanwhile there is one child killed by a gun for every one
million (plus) guns in this country or with about 300 million guns, approximately
175 children die. This means a child is over 157 times more likely to drown in
a pool than be killed by a gun. Hence, banning residential pools is a much more
effective way of protecting children than banning fire arms.